How to use $VISUAL?

[eric-hansen]

I'm new to snippet engines and like the minimalism of this project.

The linked repo for snippet samples (honza/vim-snippets) uses $VISUAL a lot, and I was wondering how to make that work exactly?

Since using nvim-cmp it's not clear to me how to both insert the trigger text and be in visual mode at the same time.

[dcampos]

You need to select some text in visual mode, then press the key you've mapped to the cut_text action, followed the trigger for the snippet and expand it. The text you selected will replace the $VISUAL placeholder in the snippet.

In normal mode, you can also use a mapping for cut_text to do the same thing. Let's say the mapping is g<Tab> and you want to use text within brackets, simply press g<Tab>ib, enter the trigger and expand the snippet with the $VISUAL placeholder.

[eric-hansen]

Thanks! I couldn't figure out what the objective was for cut_text, now it makes sense.